Braben reveals more on The Outsider, Elite IV

Talking at Nottingham's Game City event earlier today, Frontier Development's David Braben dropped a handful of tantalising new hints about his latest project, The Outsider. What's more, the co-creator of seminal space-trading sim, Elite, also confirmed that Elite IV is pencilled in for release on current generation gaming hardware, following its announcement in, er, 2001.

During a talk on creating games for next generation consoles, Braben devoted plenty of time to The Outsider, a game he described as an 'action thriller, directed by the player.' He revealed that the game cast players as Jameson, an ex-CIA agent, framed for the murder of the US president, as he interacts with thousands of NPCs across a huge open city ('basically the whole of Washington DC', according to Braben).

Although a large part of The Outsider consists of traditional action and combat, the game also focusses on playing various factions off against each other, from the Chinese secret service to the corrupt CIA agents who framed you. In order to do so, players will benefit from a sophisticated NPC interaction system that Braben demonstrated with a short scene showing Jameson getting arrested, before coming under fire. Taking cover, it's still possible to interact with the arresting officer, and engage his help against the pair's assailant, and over the course of the game it will even be possible to interact with and get help from randomly passing NPCs in the midst of firefights.

Braben also revealed a sophisticated animation system, combining physics-based animations with motion-captured actions, enabling characters to react more believably to the game world. One element of that is an 'AI' driven animation system, designed to help characters interact realistically with physical game objects (which Braben demonstrated by dropping a load of chairs on some unsuspecting characters who then extricated themselves from the resulting mess).

The other element is a standard selection of motion-captured moves - such as punches and kicks - modelled on the movements of an actor. The two combine to create equally realistic interaction between in-game characters - demonstrated with a clip showing Jameson punching someone's lights out, causing them to slump to the floor, bouncing off a desk on the way down. Frighteningly believable stuff. For more information about David Braben's latest projects, check back next week.